Session 1: Introduction to Remote Sensing for Water Resources Management

The objective of this session is to provide an overview of fundamentals of remote sensing, to identify the different water cycle components, with a focus on fresh water quantities and water-related disaster risk management

This session gives an overview of remote sensing products available for rainfall estimates (TRMM, GPM, PERSIANN, among others) and provides concrete examples of their use for specific applications in extreme rainfall detection, flood and drought monitoring among others. The session will also provide instruction for access and analysis of the precipitation data.

Session 3: Using satellites for Improved Flood Monitoring and Prediction

Remote sensing data sets are essential for monitoring and predicting flood hazards at different timescales and spatial resolutions. This session focusses on practical applications of remote sensing datasets as well as more integrated platforms, such as hydrologic and routing models that utilize remote sensing data for flood monitoring and inundation mapping for early warning to post-flood relief planning.

This session focusses on the use of remote sensing for the estimate of evapotranspiration. Both direct satellite-derived estimation methods (MODIS, LANDSAT) and indirect methods through modeling (GLDAS, TOPS-SIMS) will be explored.

Remote sensing is progressively being used for the determination of groundwater conditions. Although the spatial resolution of these products are still a challenge for small-scale applications, through a set of case studies the use of GRACE and other products is discussed in specific applications.

The session is dealing with aspects related to snow and ice cover (MODIS, MODSCAG), with a focus on the Andean Region, and how the information can be used in watershed modeling for streamflow forecasting and decision making. In addition, snowmelt and snow water equivalent estimates based on Land Data Assimilation model will be introduced.

During this session different tools will be demonstrated to use remote sensing datasets for (agricultural) drought monitoring, and specifically to evaluate current tools for vegetation monitoring and to determine watershed boundaries from high resolution radar images.

This session will include an overview of the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite mission and its soil moisture products, providing examples of their use in different applications such as flood and drought forecasting amongst others.